The Nebraska Cornhuskers are the new kid on the block in the Big Ten in 2011, and the timing couldn’t be much better. Their 4th-year head coach has the Huskers turned around after they hit bottom in 2007, and they hear opportunity knocking in their new conference home.

A year ago, I profiled the Nebraska program as they headed into their last year in the Big 12, including the obligatory crystal ball-gazing about Bo Pelini as possible successor to Jim Tressel at Ohio State. It is of course an understatement that there has been a lot of water under the bridge since that was written, but the article is still useful as a recent history lesson on the Husker program and the ongoing comeback being engineered by Pelini.

Until last fall, Bo Pelini was getting a reputation as a fast finisher. His 2009 team won their last five regular season games before dropping the 13-12 heartbreaker to Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Last year’s team started out 9-1 and was ranked as high as 5th, right before an October 16th loss to Texas, but faded down the stretch.

They worked their way back into the Top 10, but then dropped three of their last four games...including 3-point losses to Texas A&M, and to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship. A disheartened Husker squad then pretty much failed to show up for the Holiday Bowl, where they dropped a 19-7 decision in a rematch with Washington, a team they had beaten by five touchdowns in September.

Despite the disappointing finish to 2010, and the daunting prospect of playing their inaugural season in a new conference, the Cornhuskers are among the preseason favorites in the Legends Division of the Big Ten, and the first USA Today poll has them ranked 11th in the country. Are they for real? Can they find in the Big Ten the conference championship that eluded them for their last decade in the Big 12?

I wanted to find out what they’re thinkin’ in Lincoln.

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Ohio State picked a bad time to play its most grueling schedule in years. Eight of the Buckeyes’ twelve opponents played in bowl games in 2010; four of those are ranked in the preseason Top 25. Three games in four weeks are against teams that won or tied for either division or conference titles. With the program in upheaval the Bucks could really use a 2007-style cupcake-fest: instead they get a relative meat-grinder.

Sept. 3: Akron- Luke Fickell couldn’t have picked a better opponent for his first game as a head coach. Akron was absolutely putrid in 2010, losing its first eleven games while sporting the second-worst offense in the country, ahead of only ghastly New Mexico. The Zips have lost fourteen in a row on the road dating back to the 2008 season and haven’t beaten a Big Ten opponent since 1894. That opponent, way back during the second Grover Cleveland administration, just happened to be Ohio State. Don’t look for a repeat of Akron’s Gilded Age heroics in Week One at the Horseshoe. Even with the expected growing pains, the Buckeyes won’t be challenged in this one.

Sept. 10: Toledo- The Rockets may be in the same conference as the Zips, but they aren’t in the same league: with Eric Page finishing fifth in the nation in receptions the boys from Jamie Farr’s hometown went 8-5 and reached the Motor City Bowl. Not bad, and with the bulk of the team- including Page- returning, the Rockets should be even better in 2011. Still, Toledo’s returning talent shouldn’t be enough to trouble the Buckeyes, who defused the Rockets 38-0 in the last meeting between the teams back in 2009. Toledo played two national programs last season- Arizona and Boise State- and lost those games by a combined score of 98-16. With Ohio State untested and still adjusting to a new head coach and a new quarterback, the Rockets might keep things interesting early. Still, the Buckeyes should have this game put away by the fourth quarter.

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It is the tendency of most people who make lists like this to try to pull obscure names from the annals of the teams history in order to impress readers with the author’s knowledge of obscure facts. In this list I have tried hard not to do that. I have done everything I can to try to objectively portray the men that I think best represent the Buckeyes primarily on the field and off. It is hard for me to imagine a time when the Buckeyes were not a dominant force on the college football field, a time when they were not among the nations elite, but that time did exist long ago. 

#10 - Rex Kern

#9 - Jim Stillwagon

#8 - Randy Gradishar

#7 - Vic Janowicz

#6 - Troy Smith

#5 - "Hopalong" Cassady

#4 - Orlando Pace

#3 - Jack "The Assassin" Tatum

#2 - Archie Griffin

#1 Chic Harley

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